


The Needle and the Damage Done (Three things that might have happened to Mystique)

by lilacsigil



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen, X3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-30
Updated: 2006-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/pseuds/lilacsigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mystique in X3, and what might have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Needle and the Damage Done (Three things that might have happened to Mystique)

1\. Masks

The guard that Mystique had left alive did his part, lunging for his weapon and firing, though Mystique was rather surprised that he fired at Magneto rather than her. Nonetheless, she quickly got herself into the firing line, and screamed, though the barrel was pinched off well before it reached her, and the toxin safely contained.

Pyro and the freed mutant prisoners gasped in horror as she rolled on the ground, her skin flickering and scales swarming, leaving her naked and pink, with a face and body she rather liked. She had a moment to think that perhaps she shouldn't have had any makeup on, but reassured herself that men wouldn't notice that. Most of them thought make-up came standard. Magneto looked down at her, as she covered her breasts and shivered pathetically, but did his part and strode away, declaiming his hatred for humans.

The other men looked at her with a mixture of disdain, fear and opportunism, and she let her eyes fill with tears. Pyro almost stopped to help her, to her great annoyance, but his dog-like devotion to Magneto won out and he left, though reluctantly. Mystique waited until the groaning of metal, ripped off the side of the truck, told her that Magneto had borne the others away, then she staggered to her feet, slipping another cartridge from the dead guard's gun as she did so. She concealed herself in a locker – a good hiding spot, but not too good for them to find, especially with video evidence – and quickly set about completing her transformation.

Mystique grew a tooth into sharpness and punctured a small vein in her wrist, squeezing the blood into a tiny latex pouch, to which she had matched her skin colour. When she had collected enough blood, she pressed the vein with her index finger until it closed, and altered her skin to hide the tiny puncture mark and the bruise around it. She quickly shot a tiny amount of the Cure toxin from her syringe into the blood pouch, then sealed it. She settled the latex pouch flat in the crook of her left elbow to keep it warm, and sealed it in place.

It didn't take long for the helicopters to arrive, and the humans soon hauled Mystique out of the locker and cuffed her, despite her distraught protestations that she had been cured and abandoned. A med-tech took her blood from her proffered elbow, and within half an hour she had been declared one of them. Safe. Neutered.

Mystique was hardly looking forward to more interrogations and being called by the name she hated, but she had discovered and rescued the mutants Magneto had wanted and it was time to continue with the plan. It was a pleasant surprise that Magneto had found her, Juggernaut and Multiple Man before they reached San Francisco. Their numbers were increasing all the time: perhaps a human version of Cerebro was out there somewhere. She was ready to cry, plead, beg, play human and feed nearly true information until the humans' silly heads spun.

She would not be caged in her own body, and she would not have that fate for anyone else.

 

2\. Sacrifice

In the moment that the needle pierced her scales, she saw the horror on Magneto's face. She held his gaze as she fell, and didn't let go until the pain was too great, trusting that he would understand her, after all this time. The shredding of her skin was a brief agony, and when she turned back to Magneto, he had closed his expression again. Her bravery had not gone unpunished, but neither would it be futile: it was no effort to bring tears to her eyes – what colour were they? – when he stepped over her and left. Pyro followed, with a glance that wavered between lustful and terrified, and she could only hope he had the sense to keep his brain turned off, and to continue to follow Magneto without question.

As soon as the new recruits had left with Magneto and Pyro, Mystique rolled to her feet, slightly wobbly, and stripped off the guard's heavy uniform. Without the ability to thicken her skin and scales and thus regulate her body temperature, she was just going to have to use artificial means of warmth. She was oddly glad for the huge, heavy boots, as her pink feet were uselessly soft on the soles. Rifle over her shoulder, she sprinted for cover, and kept running through the trackless forest until her legs burned. She was going to have to stay hidden for at least a few days: there was no way Magneto could have collected enough mutants yet, let alone moved them all to camp and trained them as she would.

Mystique sighed, and, after sipping water from a fast-moving stream, marched onwards, following the river down the hills. The rifle kept hitting her in the back and hip, and it was very awkward to carry without being able to redistribute the weight across her body. After a little while, she slung it over the branch of a tree and went on without. She had not needed a human weapon before, and she did not intend to start living in fear now. Her skills and her mind were intact, and her dedication still perfect.

A full two days of midge bites and blisters from her toes to her neck drove her to the outskirts of a small town in search of warmth, food, clean clothes and perhaps calamine lotion. It was no trouble to break into an isolated house and steal what she needed. She even showered, no longer needing to worry about oiling her scales afterwards. It was not until she realised she was glad the mirror was steamed up that she first felt anger. She abruptly wiped a clean spot on the tarnished mirror and stared at her new face.

Her face was pretty and innocuous: just the look she'd wear if her plan involved asking an older man for help. Mystique blinked, and it was odd to see the face in the mirror blink, too. She pinched one cheek, hard, pulling at the flesh until her mouth distorted, too, but when she let go, it all slipped right back to where it had been. The pinch mark was bright red, like a kiss. She savagely pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, and watched impassively as her eyebrows lifted with the force of her action.

Fully dressed, now in a tracksuit that fitted better but still felt strangely heavy on her shoulders, her hunger and minor irritations tended, Mystique walked on. She doubted anyone was looking for her, now – they would assume she'd gone with Magneto, and there were no guards alive to confirm otherwise. Soon, she would turn herself in, and throw herself on the humans' mercy, tears filling her eyes and anger on her lips. They would commit their troops on the advice of an enemy, and Magneto would fight unhindered by their dragging weight of number.

The humans would follow her information because they did not understand that they could change her blood, but they could not change her soul. The little girl who had been too afraid to go to school, the teenager who had been taught to hide, the woman who fought for justice: they all bared their sharp white teeth behind her smiling, helpful, stupid face.

 

3\. Freedom

As much as he fears them, Magneto always discounts the humans. He sees them as a great indistinguishable mass of violence and ignorance. Only Mystique is watching when the wounded guard expends his life in a spasm of foolish bravery.

The needle hits her shoulder and she falls, shrieking as her self is stripped away with her skin. She rolls over in agony, and when she rolls back towards her comrades-in-arms she is soft and naked like the flesh of a snail. Magneto speaks, and steps over her, and they are done.

She has fallen into the squirming pit of the ordinary and he has abandoned her, like a merciless angel. Mystique's eyes widen in pain, then narrow in anger. An emperor does not abandon the wounded soldier to the enemy: at the very least, she would have killed him, were he in her place.

She waits for the black helicopters to arrive, and is shocked by the humans' solicitude and kindness. A doctor tests her blood for the Cure antibodies, and the humans accept her anger and horror without doubt. They clothe her, and she despises the roughness of fabric against her pale nipples, but smiles and smiles through her tears.

Everyone wants to talk to her, in their military suits with desperate sweat rings under the arms. Her manner is soft, but her mind is sharp, and she knows, finally, that Magneto is unfit to lead. He is constrained by his fears, and she is inspired by hers.

She tells the military about every safe area Magneto has established – at least all the ones that could house a hundred or more mutants – because she needs to drive him out. Without her, his planning will be clumsily direct. Without the bases, he will be driven into the open before he is ready: Xavier's people will stop him, and he will be brought low.

She doubts her injury is permanent: she's not a scientist, but she knows that antibody treatments are not reliable, and that this "cure" was rushed into production. Even if she's wrong, she has bought the humans' trust with her rage, and will go on her way a free woman. Mystique still holds hope that Magneto will one day learn freedom, but it will not be from her.


End file.
